The present invention relates to stacked card connectors, and particularly to engaging means of stacked card connectors for facilitating assembly thereof.
1. Description of Prior Art
As the popularity of notebook computers increases, electrical card connectors are becoming more common for coupling a diskette or an IC (integral circuit) card to the computer for storing or receiving data contained on the diskette or IC card. Most current IC cards and electrical card connectors conform to the standards of PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card Industry Association).
It is desirable to have several PCMCIA cards accessible to the computer to meet the demand for an increase in data storage capacity of personal computers. To this end, card connectors are commonly stacked and then mounted to a printed circuit board (PCB) thereby conserving space. Currently, PCMCIA card connectors are stacked in pairs and are known as stacked card connectors which are formed by vertically attaching two single connectors together.
Various engaging means, such as screw sets and movable fasteners, are applied to fasten the two single connectors together. Taiwan Pat. Application No. 86210606 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,047 disclose pertinent designs. Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional stacked card connector assembly 4 including two connectors is fastened by means of a screw set including a bolt 44 and a nut 45. A shield 40 is attached to the card connector 4 by a pair of positioning pieces 41 extending from opposite sides thereof. Each positioning piece 41 has an aperture 411 disposed therein. A pair of guide frames 43 extends from a header 42 of each single connector (not labeled). A hole 431 is disposed in each guide frame 43 for the extension of the bolt 44 therethrough.
In assembly, the shield 40 is placed on the guide frame 43, and the positioning piece 41 is aligned with the hole 431 and the nut 45 on one side of the shield 40. The bolt 44 is inserted into the hole 431 from an opposite side of the shield 40 whereby one hand is required to stabilize the nut 45 while the other hand rotates the bolt 44 for fastening the components together. While engaging the nut 45 with the bolt 44, the positioning piece 41 is planar and can not prevent the nut 45 from vertical movement, thus the nut 45 may be displaced by the bolt 44 during assembly. Therefore, one hand must hold the nut 45 while the other hand rotates the bolt 44, which is inconvenient and time inefficient.
Movable fasteners are also used to fasten two single connectors together as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,047. However, this approach increases the number of components and complicates the manufacturing process, which is unfavorable for decreasing manufacturing costs and increasing manufacturing efficiency.
The present invention is directed at solving the problems identified above and providing an integrally formed engaging means for stacked card connectors.